Report says Smartphone Sales fell In 2016 due to Forex Instability

Report coming from International Data Corporation (IDC), a consulting and global research firm, has reveled that smartphone sales in Nigeria and other African countries, were down thanks to the foreign exchange fluctuations.

Nigeria expressed massive hit as dollar exchanges was far more against the naira and the country accounts for more sales than any other African country.

The report also suggests that 215.33 million mobile phones were shipped into Africa in 2016, however, feature phones, with 119.97 million units had more units than smartphones ( feature phones are different from smartphones), although smartphone brands like Samsung, Tecno, Itel and Infinix led the smartphone market in 2016.

Samsung led with 27% market share dropping by 2.5%. Second placed brand was Tecno with market share of 12%, closely followed by Huawei, at 8%. Itel came third with 6% and lastly, Infinix, at 3%.

Commenting on this development, the research manager for mobile devices in Africa at IDC, Ramazan Yavuz, said price competitiveness has become a key issue in many African markets.

To grow significantly in these markets, vendors have to be able to address the continent’s large low-income population by providing affordable phones.

Some dealers of smartphones at the popular Computer village in Lagoos confirmed that sales of smartphones decreased due to inflation and recession.